The 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions

In 1926/27 the Soviet Central Statistical Administration initiated several year-long expeditions to gather primary data on the whereabouts, economy, and living conditions of all rural peoples living in the Arctic and sub-Arctic at the end of the Russian civil war. Due partly to the enthusiasm of local geographers and ethnographers, the Polar Census grew into a massive ethnological exercise, gathering not only basic demographic and economic data on every household but also a rich archive of photographs, maps, kinship charts, narrative transcripts, and museum artifacts. To this day, it remains one of the most comprehensive surveys of a rural population anywhere. The contributors to this volume - all noted scholars in their region - have conducted long-term fieldwork with the descendants of the people surveyed in 1926/27. This volume is the culmination of seven years' work with the primary record cards and was supported by a number of national scholarly funding agencies in the UK, Canada, and Norway. It is a unique historical, ethnographical analysis and of immense value to scholars familiar with these communities' contemporary cultural dynamics

David G. Anderson is Assistant Professor of the Anthropology and leads a research group on comparative indigenous studies at the University of Tromso, Norway. He researches the history and ethnography of the circumpolar Arctic and has conducted fieldwork in Eastern Siberia (Taimyr, Evenkiia, Zabaikal'e), the Russian North (Kola), Northern Norway, and in Canada's Mackenzie Delta. His current research is on the different visions of history among settler states and aboriginal peoples and how this is linked to the growing debate on indigenous rights. His publications include Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia (Oxford University Press), and two co-edited books, Ethnographies of Conservation and Cultivating Arctic Landscapes (Berghahn Books).